There has been a wide debate on India not playing Pakistan in the 2019 World cup owing to the involvement of Jaish-e-Mohammad in the Pulwama terror attack. Jaish is a Pakistan based terrorist organization run by Masood Azhar. Harbhajan Singh was the first to say that the nation and army comes first and that the BCCI should not allow team India to play Pakistan in the upcoming world cup.
There has been calls to boycott the June 16 World Cup face-off against Pakistan at the Old Trafford in the aftermath of the dastardly attack. Several former cricketers like Sourav Ganguly and Mohammad Azharuddin were of the same opinion but some experts also opposed it and said that India will hand over two easy points to Pakistan which is no less than a surrender.
BCCI was to finalize on the decision of playing Pakistan on Friday but the meeting eked no result in Delhi.
Virat Kohli reacts
Meanwhile, Indian captain Virat Kohli has came up and said that the team will respect the decision put to them by BCCI and the Indian government.
“Our stand is simple. We stick by what the nation wants to do and what the BCCI decides to do and that is basically our opinion. Whatever the government and the board decide, we will eventually go by that and will respect that. So that is our stand on this particular issue,” Kohli said.
Virat further expressed the condolence from himself and the team on the devastating suicidal attack that killed 40 army personnels.
“Our sincere condolences to the families of the soldiers who lost their lives. The Indian team is really shocked and sad about what happened,” he added.
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Australia upfront
India will be heading to play its last bilateral series before the world cup. The men in blue will square off against Australia in a two match T20 series which starts in Visakhapatnam on Sunday. The T20 series will be followed by a five match ODI series.
